Saturday, April 10, 2010

Results, April 7-11

The main news in joshi puroresu this week focused on the Sendai Girls tournament and on the U.S.A.-bound wrestlers.
Sendai Girls met at Zepp Sendai on Friday night for the first two rounds of the second Battlefield Tournament. This year, it's 12 wrestlers in a single-elimination tournament, with 4 wrestlers drawing first-round byes. We also get the return of injured Hiren (back) and Sendai Sachiko (ankle) and the introduction of a new trainee from Nagano who will hopefully debut later this year. Hiren, Sachiko, and Kagetsu also got new costumes, much like DASH Chisako and Ryo Mizunami got a few months ago. Hiren's going with a sparklier version of her red Sendai gear, while Sachiko's main color is white, with red and pink trim and armbands (if big sis Chisako can have them, so can I!), while Kagetsu has a red and blue sporty two piece, and KNEEPADS (obviously Satomura loves her, as not just anyone gets kneepads).

In actual action, Ryo Mizunami was the first to advance to the semifinals. She beat Chicago-bound Hiroyo Matsumoto in the opener, gaining revenge for her loss in the youth tournament two years ago, then got that elusive win over a senior, pinning Toshie Uematsu. The sisters met in Sachiko's return, with older sis Chisako scoring the win by frogsplash. Chisako was then dispatched quickly by NEO ace Yoshiko Tamura. Nanae Takahashi made it through Hiren and then Kaori Yoneyama with little difficulty. Kagetsu (aka Yukari Ishino) had bragged in her blog that she was going to beat both Aja Kong and Meiko Satomura (a feat Ayako Hamada did pull off in 2007). Aja's vicious lariat after just 138 seconds made a liar out of young Ms. Ishino. The main event saw Meiko and Aja go to a twenty minute draw, allowing Meiko to advance by the Sendai house rule that allows the lighter wrestler to move on in the brackets. Next month will have Miz vs Tamura and Meiko vs Nanae.

The other big news is this weekend's U.S. debut for Hiroyo, Ayumi Kurihara, Tomoka Nakagawa, and Misaki Ohata in SHIMMER. The latter three flew in to Chicago on Friday, while Hiroyo showed what a trooper she is by working the Sendai show on Friday night and she still plans on working the SHIMMER taping on Saturday night, going straight from O'Hare to the Berwyn Eagles Club. Kurihara even got her picture in the Chicago Sun-Times. Joshi creeps all over 'da Region will spank and rejoice! Obviously the Tribune is far too stuffy to cover indy women's wrasslin'.

All I know so far is that Kurihara and Nakagawa will face each other, extending their feud from NEO and OZ, while Ohata will face Daizee Haze. I'm sure there will be other matches, as they are taping 4 DVDs worth of material. They will then work JAPW next weekend, with Ayumi vs Sara Del Ray and Hiroyo & Sumie Saki vs Misaki & Tomoka.

In other Japan action, Ice Ribbon had the usual two shows in Warabi City, with Kazumi Shimouma drawing with Emi Sakura before her junior title shot next weeks against JWP Jr./POP champ Ryo Mizunami, and Makoto getting two pins in tag action. NEO had a house show, with the main event of Kyoko Inoue & Yuki Miyazaki vs Nanae Takahashi & Kaoru Ito in a specially reinforced ring (ha, j/k). JWP will do a dojo show tomorrow in prep for their Korakuen Hall show next weekend.